I am having an Illustrator design printed on a “sticker” to be affixed to a metal plate for outdoor use. The printer requested eps. I requested a test print and the resulting image had artifacts. For instance, there are light shaded boxes around some things (drop shadows incorrect?). Also, some of the stroked fonts had little open circles on the corners, like it was selected. When I print from Illustrator to local paper printers, the image is fine. I guess I need to speak to the printer, but for now I’m going through a third party. The original is 9”x12”, CMYK. I saved as “Illustrator CS4 EPS”, transparent, tiff (8-bit color), and under “transparency” I probably changed the preset to “high resolution” (can’t remember). From what I read in other posts, EPS is a black box for a printer that doesn’t understand postscript and that pdf would be better. Also, I read that maybe I should be using process or spot colors (couldn’t figure out which). Any guidance would be most appreciated!

Wether or not EPS, spot color, or processes colors work well is all up to your particular printer and the method of production. It's pretty rare to have "artifacts" when printing a vector EPS file... However, an EPS can merely be a raster file in an EPS wrapper. (Photoshop saved EPS files too) EPS is simply a container format and can house either vector or raster content, or both.

The .eps file was saved with transparency? Typically, the .eps is "flattened" upon output. These artifacts could be RIP errors. Sounds like a Postscript interpreter problem. Any Layers? The font stroke problem sounds like an open path situation...very weird. It's a relief you asked for a proof before the job was processed and printed. I'd be interested in hearing what the print vendor has to say.

hmnn: if you are the printers client... don't let him dictate what file you must send (baring profiles, setup and so forth... maybe). You run the risk of a bad end result. You supply him a properly exported PDF and he must worry abot ripping/printing it. (he prob using coral draw to play out...)

There was a transparency option in Illustrator save as, I believe it was the default. I just left it. Tons of layers in the drawing. There are 18 major layers (each with about 10-12 layers) but only one of the 18 is visiible at a time. They all share a "common" layer that was about 10 layers also). Is there something I need to do flatten the image before saving as eps or pdf? Sorry, I'm an amateur! I'm making tee-signs for our disc golf course, that is why 18 layers.

Agreed, I'm the printer's clilent, I need to meet the person/company doing the printing. I believe it is a small setup and was very surprised when my friend (the inbetween) brought me the sample print and he said the printer didn't have any comments or suggestions! So, I'll talk to hime, or, go to a place around the corner, a big business for our town, and surely they will be able to help me. Now, Grant, suppose eps is what I need, I see where to create the transparency preset. Would I change any of the options? The balance is set at 75. I'm not sure what that is doing, but I can read it. Thanks!